Gilchrest Fuel

--- In ThePublicSquare@yahoogroups.com, Mike Netherland wrote:

Gilchrest was one of the 11

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll144.xml

"The House yesterday approved a bill that would make it a federal crime to skirt a state parental-notification law by taking a minor to another state to obtain an abortion without her parents' involvement. The bill passed by a 270-157 vote, with 54 Democrats joining 216 Republicans in voting for the proposal against 11 Republicans, 145 Democrats and one
independent."

Shortcut to:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050427-110456-5463r.htm

Dear Enviro-folk,
I am writing to you because our local rag, The Capital, associated your organization with something they call the Maryland Green Party on their website http://www.hometownannapolis.com/lw_politics.html). If this a false association (and I would be shocked if that was so) you can take it up with them.

Anyway, there is a U.S. Congressman who, despite my gentle nudgings and proddings over the years, continues to support legislation that our party (the GOP) opposes and opposes that which our party supports. So it is with HR 748 (Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act), against which he, along with 10 of his fellow travelers, recently voted.

In a recent message to him, I tried to make an anology as to why this was unacceptable by invoking the good name of the Green Party. I said essentially that the Green Party wouldn't wait for the next election to throw out of office their man in Washington if he voted for, say, increased logging in Yellowstone. Am I right? Or if he voted for increasing federal funding for nuclear power generation, he would be out on his ear, no?

Well we have just the man for you. He is Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (R? -MD). I think you would find that his inclinations are more aligned with yours than they are with ours. So write him a nice letter and invite him to enjoy the warm support of the Green Party. Who knows, given the blind following he seems to enjoy in Maryland, I am confident that he will win as a Green Party candidate. No, no...don't thank me. I voted against him in the last primary. Please send your letters of appreciation to the Maryland State GOP, which keeps sending him back to Washington term after term. In fact you may find that the MD GOP would support him even if he runs as a Green. Stranger things have happened in our party over recent elections.

Yours truly,

Mike Netherland

The Thing About the Teacher Union

--- In ThePublicSquare@yahoogroups.com, Mike Netherland wrote:

(The TAAAC is the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County [MD]; and the MSTA is the Maryland State Teachers Association...I think you can guess the rest! Heather is a former "education" beat "reporter" for the Annapolis Capital)

OK, for those in the Square who just don't get it yet.....There is one main reason why the TAAAC/MSTA/NEA/DNC/MOVEON.ORG is bad: It is a tool of the Democratic Party. They are one and the same. I will gleefully debate this with any of you who have second thoughts...whose sister or spouse is a current or former teacher, and so like Sen. George
Voinovich, your conscience has gotten the better of you.

The concept is simple. You take great American institutions like collective bargaining and public school teaching and put them together and BAM! Teachers are exploited, under valued, treated like dirt and whose fault is it? Well it's the greedy school board's fault. They have some interest in keeping the proletariat, er, I mean, the teachers down and in discouraging their collective bargaining tendencies. Now what posible interest could they have? Well it doesn't matter. The school board is evil and the head of that evil is the Superintendent. You don't believe the union? Well here is the Superintendent himself, "The salaries in this county are an embarassament," by this he means they are embarassingly low. Evil, union-busting....well you can't believe him, the county expects to be running a surplus in next years' budget!

There are some interesting questions raised in that last paragraph (Heather, you are allowed to ask questions when you write news stories). What possible interest does the school board have in denying the teachers anything? Do they get a cut of any budget surplus? Are they running for popularly elected office? Is it just for the thrill of being front page news in the The Capital every day? And what does it say about the people who "elected" the school board members? Well it
says they elected evil, heartless, child-hating, exploitative capitalist pigs. Why would they do that? Because they themselves are evil, heartless...OK, got it? Sheriff Finlayson and her unwitting dupes are picketing county taxpayers who are stupidly enough, given the right to vote.

Now while you are digesting that, her is another reason why I don't trust Sheriff Finlayson: Politics. If the TAAAC were simply an agent of collective bargaining, I would hold no grudge. After all, somebody has to negotiate higher salaries and benefits and working conditions
for those poor slaves of the county school system. Right? It's not as though they can just up and leave for teaching positions in neighboring, benevolent counties, now can they? Of course not. That would mean they would have to drive or (gasp!!) take public transportation. No, they owe their souls to the county company store. And the county taxpayers and thier neighbors, fellow parishoners, have the them over a barrel and they know it. My neighbor, my tormentor.
Makes you want to cry, doesn't it?

But no, the TAAAC is a politically active organization and as such contributes to larger state and national teachers unions whose bank accounst are coveted by politicians. I would have no problem with that if they were conservatives but, for some strange reason the TeachPACs
prefer liberal politicians. And liberal politicians will quite literally be the death of us!

What's Wrong with this Picture?

In response to a political team-building message recently circulated in Maryland:
"Why Employers Should Support Governor Ehrlich

· Governor Ehrlich has fostered a business climate of growth and prosperity.
· Nearly 70,000 new jobs have been created since Governor Ehrlich took office.... " etc.

It is sad that the "business" community needs to be persuaded to vote for and support a Republican candidate. It is a sad commentary on the business leaders as well as on the Republican Party. I don't know which is worse. Until last night I was sure it was the business leaders who were the misguided ones.

That's when I happened to catch a few minutes of debate on the House floor regarding gas prices and energy conservation. The debate featured Roscoe Bartlett who is convinced that we will never have enough oil no matter what. The other "Republicans" were convinced, in turns, that we were directly funding terrorists, we are using waaaay too much oil (think of how terrorists will have to cut back their operations if we could only conserve a little!), and that we must start buying more hybrid cars like the kind Dr. Bartlett drives! The one "R" came close enough to calling for a law to FORCE Americans to buy certain fuel-efficient products! He literally had to choke back his words.

Building more refineries and LNG terminals were "schemes." More exploration is out of the question because Dr. Bartlett says there is no more. Nuclear power didn't even rise to level of scheme. I never heard a reference to more nuclear plants. Lastly there was an "R" who claimed to be a physicist and as such had a tangible relationship with energy. For most people, he explained, energy is odorless and colorless and otherwise intangible, except to him, which makes him a kook. And to prove it he theorized that if only energy was purple, like his tie, people would be able to see it and would be more inclined to conserve energy, you know, to keep all the purple in.

Thank God the Democrats were up next! Their ranting about not having any power, losing majorities, and lamenting the long, long list of scandals, and cronies, seemed soothing and familiar. Well, with performances like last night's, it won't be very long before the Democrats take it all back. It will start with the '06 election where we will lose both Houses of Congress (that we really ever had them is a matter of debate).

In 2008, Hillary will be president. We have only ourselves to blame. God help us all!

Freak Show

Every 10 or 15 years, it seems, I have to remind myself why I don't do certain things. And so it was today as I beat a hasty retreat from the permanent Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville. The last time I attended a decade or so ago, I had been married a few years, was
childless and thought it sounded like a good idea at the time. The searing heat and humidity quickly took its toll on me as we made our way across several acres of parking field. Once among the trees of the festival area, the heat and humidity was still distracting but I was
amused by the "period dress," antics, improvisation and other entertainment.

But for the weather, I probably would have been a regular visitor and I wonder if I would have noticed the decline in the quality of the festival "organizers" as well as the festival goers. Today's visit has shown that the festival has been reduced to an open-air orgy of every fetish modern western society has to offer. Now I am not narrow-minded and easily offended, but there is a reason why we don't take our children to leather bars and strip joints. They should be the same ones for not taking them to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. It should be treated as any other adult entertainment establishment. As such, it probably would have to be closed down for it's proximity to schools and churches.

There was an even mix of voyeurs and exhibitionists, with some playing dual roles. Within those two broad categories were the bondage and sado-masochist crowd. The women and girls were consumed with a game of who can push more mammary mass up and out while at the same time appearing self-conscious every time a voyeur's jaw would drop. The festival, it seemed to me, was the chance for all those people who for whatever reasons didn't make it to Mardi Gras in Rio or New Orleans, South Beach, or to the topless resorts of the world to let it all hang
out in Crownsville, Md.

Pretty much gone from the first festival I attended was any pretense at entertainment. The paying throng were entertainment enough, themselves. Gone also is the pretense that anyone will learn anything about the Renaissance, or about the Middle Ages by attending the festival. Gone also should be the pretense that YOU are going to witness quaint reenactments of a typical day in a Middle Ages market or town square. You are going for the cleavage contests! Why your wife is going is beyond the scope of this column (though I sense it is a form of Sadism).
Me? Truthfully, I had no idea how bawdy it had become. I loathed the idea of attending all these years because of the heat and crowds of rude, obnoxious people.

The really sad part is that I noticed that there were tourists in attendance. Tourists from Europe!

Bush's summer...

President Bush is on vacation again. By some counts, the president has made roughly 50 trips to his Texas ranch, logging more than 300 whole or partial days there. The White House is quick to say his visits to the "Western White House" are working vacations, where Bush hosts foreign leaders, signs documents and gets daily briefings.

My oh my, must be tough.

I'm sure Osama has his vacation spot too.